Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask briefly about personal protective equipment, PPE, generally. There is €485 million of unsuitable or obsolete equipment in storage. It includes hand sanitisers, gowns and protective suits that, along with the ventilators, we will not get a benefit from. It is a high figure. I know the context. I always acknowledge the work that was done during the pandemic. On a global scale we fared better than most, considering we were at the epicentre of it in Europe. This State did well. Of course mistakes were made but overall we did well. There is €500 million of a hangover. Masks are an issue that bothered me at the time.

We were being told not to wear masks. I know we had to take the Chief Medical Officer’s advice on it, but looking at those interviews with people on television, I was not convinced, as a non-medical lay person, that we should not be wearing masks. It would appear the reason was they were needed in the hospitals, which I accept, but other countries told people to make masks. I am not sure that was dealt with - I do not want to use the word “honestly” - but I thought it was a bit disingenuous at the time that we were told in March and April not to wear masks and by June, if I recall, we were told to wear masks.

With regard to mask supply, I was shocked that the only place on God’s earth that we could get masks was to send Aer Lingus off to China. At this point, I do not want to go back over that and I know we were in an awful emergency, and ten out of ten for the huge efforts made by staff in terms of trying to meet that emergency. However, in the here and now, this is what is important. If we needed millions of masks tomorrow morning, where would we get them from? I am just giving that as an example and it could apply equally to gowns and protective clothing.